BRITISH GUIANA (I!) 323 
incidents. According to a Government official who returned re- 
cently from Guiana, local legend has it that I was last seen cycling 
through Georgetown with a Harpy Eagle under one arm and 
holding up an umbrella with the other hand! A strange sight 
indeed! 
The owner of the bird told me that he had captured it by 
shooting it, and that there was a very slight injury to one wing. I 
examined this, but could find no evidence except that one of its 
primaries was twisted. 
This harpy became so tame in a few days that he allowed me 
to stroke his head, and when he moulted there was no further 
evidence of his slight wing injury. Harpy Eagles in general do 
not stand the rigors of our climate as well as most tropical birds 
of prey, but this one appears to be in fine fettle after five years in 
the London Zoo. 
All the smaller hawks in British Guiana are known locally as 
Chicken Hawks, or rather that was their original appellation. It 
has long since been corrupted to chickenok, and to my great 
amusement an English schoolmistress in Georgetown asked me 
if I knew the common hawk-like bird that the children called 
“Tickenok.” 
My collection by now included not only a large variety of birds 
and mammals, but such reptiles as iguanas, teguexins and boa 
constrictors. Through my boy’s negligence, one of the latter— 
quite small—was found to have escaped. This was nothing to 
worry about—at least, so I thought—but apparently the cook got 
to hear of this, and from her it got to the ears of the press. To 
my astonishment this news was deemed highly sensational and 
had pride of place in the local press over such trifling things as 
the rising cost of living. In fact, one might have gathered from 
the importance attached to the escape of a snake, albeit non- 
venomous, that the whole town was in a panic. As far as a good 
many people were concerned | found that this was actually so, 
and that every sort of rustling noise caused by rats, mice, or opos- 
sums in houses at night was attributed to the dreaded snake. 
After a week of this, during which time it was suggested that I 
should not be allowed to keep dangerous creatures in the town, a 
fellow came to me one night and said he had seen a snake on the 
